Build Date: Fri Mar 28 22:50:15 2025 UTC
Oh right, like your opinions are any better then anybody else's.
-- Johnnie Royale
No Friction, No Profit. No Profit, No Job
2000-10-20 13:41:00
This is a really good this piece by Scott Rosenberg over at Salon. He clearly identifies one of the major fundamental flaws in the premises that most e-Commerance sites are built on.
His main point is that what he calls "friction" in the market is where many, if not most retailers make their money. Remove all the friction, remove all the profit. Thing is, one of the fundamental tenets of most e-Commerance sites is that they remove the friction for the buyer. Which is way buyers should (according to the e-commerance sites) use the web instead of visiting a traditional brick and mortar store
I'm gonna cut out more of this article then we typical do here that the PDJ. If Mr. Bad and Tjames get pissed off... well, fuck'em, I break the rules here all the time and they're just gonna have to get used to it. This is a good quote and you should read it.
As the bankruptcies and closures mount in the e-commerce universe, it's apparent that investors and consumers alike are beginning to understand viscerally what skeptics have long outlined as the grim, iron paradox of e-commerce. Either e-commerce doesn't deliver much in the way of reducing friction, adding convenience and lowering prices, in which case there's no reason to embrace it; or it does manage to do so, in which case the consumer's gain is the industry's loss.
Friction, it turns out, is the parent of the profit margin. The more you move toward a perfect market mechanism the fewer opportunities there are for anyone to make money.
What's the ultimate embodiment of friction-free economics? A marketplace in which everything is free, instantly available and infinitely duplicable, with no cost of goods, no transaction costs and no inventory depreciation: in other words,
Napster. Napster, unsurprisingly, turns out to be hugely popular with consumers -- and anathema to producers and distributors. The one thing that's missing from its model is cash. No friction? No revenue, and no profit. Whoops!
I just love the point about Napster. Whoops is right.
In this reality check world, where profits are once again considered essential to any business strategy, if you're in a Dot-Com trying to reduce market "friction", you should really...
T O P S T O R I E S
California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...)
Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...)
Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...)
Delusional rich man tries to fire town staff
"I'm mayor now" said write-in mayoral candidate and founder of Pirate’s Booty Snacks Robert Ehrlich after losing the election for Mayor of Sea Cliff, NY. Then he tried to take over the Village Hall and fire everyone. (More...)
Musk claims Xitter security is staffed by idiots
Earlier this month Xitter experienced a massive outage. In an interview, Musk told Fox Business that he believes the attack came from "IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area." (More...)
The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
Ideas have taken horrifying shape and rooted into our modern reality. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
It was Friday night at the Casa de Baron and everything was in place -- a group of friends had assembled, people were setting things on fire in the backyard, and a Ferry Corsten double-live CD was playing on the stereo. Everything was in place to make further scientific advances in beverage research and leisure technology. (More...)
Patient Joab's scientifick editorial discusses aspect of the space-time-beer continuum never before processed by sub-bush-robot minds!!! Too fabulantastic to contempulate! (More...)
This week: another fine spocktail from the beverage researchers at SMRL! Drink it in peace, because WE DID THE RESEARCH! (More...)
The Innocent San Francisco Mule
Flesh and Abby have moved to an isolated rural location in the United States - equipped only with their sense of adventure. Recently they came down off the mountain briefly to file this report? (More...)
Three Days and 25 Spocktails: A Cautionary Tale
Johnnie Royale picked me up from the dental surgery. I felt warm, safe, cradled in the anathesia's loving embrace. The pharmacy downstairs gave me a bottle of Vicodin and a few instructions: take it with food, don't mix with alcohol, don't operate heavy machinery. I put it in my pocket and we left. "Do you want to go home, or do you want to go to a bar?" asked Johnnie. (More...)
Body and Soul, a night of fucking in San Francisco
For the benefit of Pigdog readers, I took it upon myself to explore the deep frontiers of human behavior and attend a saucy festival of the flesh. This was no ordinary fete of carnal delights, dearie. (More...)
